Monday, June 27, 2011

Easy Peasy


Nolan's first upper GI barium test was a little bit of an ordeal - he wouldn't drink it, so they had to administer the barium via NG tube, and then we had to wait around for a while to make sure the barium cleared his system. Plus, the radiology waiting room was way overbooked, so there was nowhere to sit or stand while waiting for the test.

This time was a complete 180 from the first test. There was no-one in radiology except for us (and one other family completing an upper GI), and we were called back at exactly 9:30am for the test. They did one "pilot" X-ray of Nolan's empty stomach, and then called him back for the barium test. While I can't stay in the room during the actual test, we had talked about the procedure over the weekend.

Nolan agreed to drink the barium while standing up (the table rotates to accommodate this), and was absolutely brilliant about the whole thing. He didn't seem to mind the barium much - his Zantac tastes much worse, and as long as he didn't have to get a "tubie," he thought drinking the barium was just dandy.

The test was so fast I could hardly believe it - within 15 minutes they said they were done and sent us on our merry way. We pulled out of the parking garage by 10:30am, and headed to the Buffalo Zoo. We spent a lovely afternoon as a family, looking at the elephants and gorillas.

The report will be at the ENT's office by tomorrow afternoon. It is most likely normal: his first scan was also completely normal, even though he had extremely severe reflux. For some reason, Nolan's reflux is off-the-charts severe on the probes, but never seems to show up on the scintiscans or the upper GI series.

At least it is one more appointment done and over with. The rest of this week slotted with lots of outdoor play and soccer games!

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

I saw your comment on Texaskennys.blogspot.com about Nolan saying "cat" but says "tandy". Just wanted to leave you a message that one of my sons does the same thing. He can say the word "candy" if you ask him to but when he says it without thinking it comes out "tandy". I have noticed he has started to say it less often now that he is older. (he doesn't have hearing loss)

Herding Grasshoppers said...

LOVE the photo :D And hurray for the test going so well!

leah said...

Jennifer, I think "fronting" is a normal developmental issue up until about the age of four. It is pretty interesting how speech develops! Nolan has a lot of fronting (t for k and d for g), but some of it is starting to dissipate.

Julie, I'm glad it went so well! MUCH easier than last time.